This invention relates to improvements in feedstock to steam cracker units and other improvements that significantly improve the profitability of a gas processing unit within an integrated refinery and steam cracker complex including recovering C2+ hydrocarbons that previously would have been burned in fuel gas.
Steam crackers convert hydrocarbon feedstock to streams rich in light alkenes like ethylene and propylene and are used as a principal industrial means to generate these valuable petrochemical products. However, the presence of hydrogen and methane in the feed to a steam cracker is detrimental, as they are not involved in the conversion of hydrocarbons and thus wastefully consume capacity and energy. Minimization of the volume of hydrogen and methane can therefore yield considerable capital and operating expense savings—not only for the steam cracker but also downstream low-temperature separation equipment such as the cold box, which can subsequently be operated at a higher temperature.